Iran, Hezbollah left off US terror threat listing

Iran and Hezbollah were left out of an annual terrorism threat assessment report offered in late February to the US Senate by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Iran and Hezbollah had been fixtures on the annual report before 2015.

Iran’s efforts to fight Sunni extremists, including the so-called
Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS), were touted in
the
unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of
the US Intelligence Communities, released recently.

While a US-led coalition has targeted Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria, the report noted Tehran’s push to keep “ISIL from
gaining large swaths of additional territory” in Iraq. Iran
is allied with both the Iraqi and Syrian governments. So, with
the US, it has a common foe in Islamic State.

In the Middle East, Iran has “intentions to dampen
sectarianism, build responsive partners, and deescalate tensions
with Saudi Arabia,” the report noted, though it warned that
some Iranian actions to “protect and empower Shia communities
are fueling growing fears and sectarian responses,” which
could hinder regional stability.

Hezbollah, a Shiite group based in Lebanon and funded by Iran,
has also fought Islamic State militants in both Syria and Iraq,
though they are not part of the US-led coalition of
26 nations that has used airstrikes to counter Islamic
State’s sprawl in the region.

Both Iran and Hezbollah were included in the ‘Terrorism’ section
of the 2014 version of the threat assessment report, which said
both “continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S.
allies. Hizballah [sic] has increased its global terrorist
activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since
the 1990s.”

Iran was included in the ‘Terrorism’ section of previous threat
assessments, in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

The ongoing negotiations between Iran and the US, among other
world powers, regarding Tehran’s nuclear program are likely
another reason Iran was not included in the threat assessment.

The National Intelligence report said Tehran has “overarching
strategic goals of enhancing its security, prestige, and regional
influence [that] have led it to pursue capabilities to meet its
civilian goals and give it the ability to build
missile-deliverable nuclear weapons, if it chooses to do
so.”

The report did not say whether Iran would seek nuclear weapons,
but it did say that if Iran should decide to do so, it faces no
“insurmountable technical barriers to producing a nuclear
weapon.”

Tehran’s exclusion from the terror threat designation is part of
Washington’s strategy, Max Abrahms, a member at the Council of
Foreign Relations,
told Newsweek.

“I think that we are looking at a quid pro quo, where Iran
helps us with counter-terrorism and we facilitate their nuclear
ambitions and cut down on our labelling of them as
terrorists,” says Abrahms. “The world has changed. The
Sunni threat has gotten worse, the Islamic State is a greater
danger than Al-Qaeda ever was, and the Iranians have really come
up big in terms of helping us out in combating the Islamic
State.”

According to the Times of Israel, Israeli think tank Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center pointed out that Iran and Hezbollah were
considered terror threats in a separate report by the US Defense
Intelligence Agency.

“Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and
Lebanese Hezbollah are instruments of Iran’s foreign policy and
its ability to project power in Iraq, Syria, and
beyond,”the
US Defense Intelligence Agency told the US Senate in an
assessment also offered on February 26.

Meanwhile, talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program are set to
resume in Switzerland in the coming days. Little is known about
the deal being negotiated, but leaked information over the past
several weeks indicates that it would allow Iran to develop a
civilian atomic program under strict supervision, which would
make it very difficult to build a nuclear weapon.